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Why so negative?

Hello lovely ladies. I really hope that someone can give me a bit of insight. After IVF failure, my husband and myself are about to try and start the adoption process. I have some friends who have adopted children so after speaking with them and searching my heart I really feel that this option makes sense. I have a gift to give and the child has a gift that they can give me.

My friends who have adopted have nothing but positive things to say about this process and have 3 lovely, lovely children all under the age of 1, however, after speaking with two social workers, they have been completely and utterly negative! I just cant seem to get my head around it! The social workers have said that the only children really available to adopt are all either older, have disibilities and are generally from an ethnic minority. They have also said that due to where I live, I will not be treated as a priority.

The SW said that my dog will need to be assessed, myself and my husband cannot have any debt (SW seemed to think that having £5K on a credit card is unacceptable and asked me what we had bought with that money!!???) and that my husband child (from 1st marriage) will have to assessed for impact on her and makes us ineligible for fostering.

Basically, SW kept putting up so many barriers and has made me feel absolutely dreadful!

Is this normal practice? I am beginning to think me and my husband will never have a family together. I cannot understand how we are being penalised for being white, living in area we do and wanting a child without disabilities who is under the age of 5. I am feeling very upset by this process so far.

Do any of you guys know why a SW would try and make me think that I may as well forget about adoption when my friends are living proof that it is possible to adopt within the criteria that they selected for their children.

Joeys!
Firstly welcome to This is a fabulous site with lots of help and support, and I'm sure you'll find plenty of friendly advice on here!

I'm sorry you've had such a negative start to your adoption journey. DH and I have also just started the same journey, and have been met with a similar (although not identical) reaction.

*However*, I think it is often the way these things are put across to prospective adopters, rather than "what's" actually said. The truth is that what your SW has said is correct. There are very few babies available for adoption now, and of course there are always lots of so called "hard to place children" that agencies are hoping to find families for. These are typically older chidlren, disabled chidlren, sibling groups, and children from ethnic minorities. It is also true that children who have a care order placed on them, have one because of circumstances that are extremely serious and Social Workers are bound to make you aware of the reality of these circumstances, and their consequences to the child (who may have resulting development delay and/or behavoural issues) from the start of the process.

It is also true that the Homestudy will rake through pretty much every aspect of your life, including your finances and you will be required to demonstrate how you will financially support a child. Our agency ask one parent to take at least a year off work if you are adopting an infant. However, I am surprised at your SW's rather snotty attitude about your credit card. If your homestudy has not started yet, then she/he has no business interrogating you in that fashion.

Ultimately, everything you have had "flagged up" to you is correct, and they always try to make you think about taking a "hard to place child" but I think that if it has been done in a way that has made you feel negative about the process, maybe you should look around for another agency (?) We went to a couple of information days before we chose who to go with, and our VA has been fabulous.

Have you been invited to a Prep course at all? That is where all the realities of adoption are really brought home - fascinating, disturbing and exciting all at the same time!

Good luck with it all hon .... and let me know if you need any more info. There are other ladies on here further down the adoption road than me ... perhaps have a look in the diary section

Hi i totally understand were you are coming from me and my fiance also thought after trying for 8 yrs and with no lucj of having a baby of our own would consider fostering/adoption as we too want to have a family and would love to help out those less fortunate, about xmas last year we got in touch with the social and asked about fostering as my parents and their parents had fosterd children while i was growing up and also i have neics and nephews too, well wen they came to see us they said as we are still ttc we wouldnt be suitable for fostering and suggeseted adoption, after some talking we decided we would like to do this. Well we were then told to get in touch with another coulcil as they dont like to operate in the same area as the families live so we had to go out of the area to find another council. All done contacted another council and filled in the lengthy assestment sheets and all seemed to be going fine. The SW came out and started off really great then they mentioned its cold in here is it always this cold!! was winter and the heating hadnt been on yet as it was really early in the morn, then the excuses kept coming, telling us we didnt have enough childcare exp when i worked in a nursery ages 6 months to 6 yrs and have younger sis, neices nephews and so does my partner, felt as tho they didnt want to give us a chane yes we are only 27 and 28 but we would love to give a child a loving and protective home, then went on to say coz my partner doesnt work how will we support, well they knew i ran my own part time biz and worked in the nursey so again i dont know. In the end they said go and get some more childcare exp and if we still want this in 2 yrs time go back to them. Well this was our kind of way of saying never give up and adoption wasnt for us. but i get what your saying there is so many children in need out there and they do say it is teens who really need looking after more.

Hope this proves your not alone hun and it isnt very nice when you get told you cant and ur not suitable when you know you are

Sorry to read your post, it sounds like the SW in question needs to sort herself out! I don't know much about the adoption process but I do have a friend who has been through it. I know it is a pretty tough process and your whole life will be investigated but they got through it all without too much trouble. Have you looked at using a voluntary adoption agency rather than a local authority one? Try having a look on here http://www.baaf.org.uk/ (link not endorsed by FZ).

I'm sure some of the lovely ladies who have adopted will be along soon enough to tell you their success stories, don't give up hope just yet, it sounds to me like you just need to find a decent SW to get you on the road.

Sorry to hear you had such a rotten experience. We we fortunate perhaps in that when we started fostering we were just at the stage if looking into IVF or ICSI. We'd had the tests and seen a consultant but nothing had officially happened yet. We foresaw the kinds of problems mentioned here and so didn't breath a word about it. During our approval panel we were asked if we planned to have children of our own and we flatly answered no. We were approved unanimously.

Since then we have had 2 cycles of ICSI and despite the obvious stresses have had a very successful and rewarding fostering career to date. Now that Fertility treatment is a road well trod for us however, we would have no option but to tell the truth and I look ahead to the prospect of the adoption process (ordeal?) With no relish at all.

Can you explain to me what the difference is between using a voluntary agency rather than a local authority. I am confused as the the difference and what different services they could offer me. So far my experience of LA has been negative - will using a voluntary agency be any different?!

Also I am in the dark as to what sort of families they would give priorty to. My LA said that I will not be given priority over someone who lives outside of the area (SW muttered something about the amount of schools in the area I live at and the potential for siblings or family members to be at the same school) but if I contact an auhority outside of where I live they cant work with me. So does this mean that no one will work with me? Or will a voluntary agency operate under different rules.

I'm no expert, as due to the fact of DH and I living in the back end of beyond, we didn't have a vast choice of agencies. However, I personally found the LA rather patronising on the phone when I made my first enquiry. Nevertheless, we went along to their Information Day, which was very useful and helpful, but also very busy. They also had a longer waiting time and were alot busier. The LA also had a certain catchment area from which they placed children, and for our own reasons, we weren't happy with this.

VAs are basically Children's Charities that have Adoption and/or fostering services as part of what they do. Our VA had a smaller group of people at the info day, and were polite and respectful from the first telephone call. The prep course was also a friendly, intimate process - with a nice lunch thrown in! The two main reasons that we chose to go with the VA were because 1) they search for children nation wide, liaising with local authorities around the country. 2) They treated us with respect from the off, and I just got a really good vibe from them (which sounds stupid, but i think it counts for alot).

The only disadvantage with VAs is that an LA will not want a VA to place their children for them if possible, as the LA will pay the VA a fee for this. If you go with a VA and get matched, you will, at some point, come into contact with a SW from your LA anyway, as your Local Authority will get involved for some reason (as well as the child's SW) (not sure how all this works yet, as haven't got to that bit!!!)

The nuts and bolts of the process will be similar wherever you go - different agencies do things in a slightly different order - eg references and prep course etc. But all will want about six references, all will interrogate your lives (including ex-partners where "deemed" necessary), and all of them will (I'm afraid) consider any risks associated with pets. Essentially it is all about the interests and saftey of a child that has already been through the mill - and it is their future health and happiness that is at the forefront of everything the agency do. But as I said before, it's the *way* all this is done, not the fact that it's being done that is important to us prosepective adopters - we deserve a bit of respect after all!

I would definitely do a little internet search for Voluntary Adoption Agencies and see what comes up - I don't know where you live, but certain agencies cover certain areas more readily.

This is a huge step for you both, and you deserve to feel secure and confident with it!

xxx

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, but about learning how to dance in the rain

We are at the moment going thru the adoption process an i can honestly say, the visiting SW who visited us after our initial inquirey tried doing the same to us too.

It is true that they asses ur dogs ... we have 2 and they will be lookoed at to see if they are good with children, what type of dog they are, where they live etc (ours are outside dogs an are kept outside at all times) there is a form to fill out with questions about the dogs, i understand why they do this cos after all, if someone has a pit bull who isnt very good with a child who may pull their tails etc, they have to be careful etc.

The children that are available, do tend to be older 2+ your friends are VERY VERY lucky to have 3 children all under the age of 1 .... that DOESNT happen often as the ladies on here who have already adopted will tell you ... u will be asked at what age is acceptable to you and u will get to talk about this in depth with your home study SW.

We were also made aware about the children comming from backgrounds of abuse or loss and that these children need a lot of help - this is true hun .. no child comes to adoption without difficulities, we learnt that on our 3 day adoption course ...

Please dont give up at this stage if this is what u really want ... after our first initial visit we were also a bit shocked at what the SW's told us, but after doing our course and getting awee bit further along the line .... im sure they tell u all these things just for u to be sure u are doing the right thing .... if ur still sat there in a years time still wanting this, then they know they have the right couple ...

Goos luck hun and please dont let the SW's put u off ... its a long hard ride, but one that will be well worth it

Hi thanks for the insight. I realise that adoption isn't going to be easy, I just think I was a bit surprised that the sw wasn't more positive about the adoption experience. I'm going to contact a voluntary organisation and see what the say!! Xx

Hi Joeys, firstly welcome to FZ. Sorry its taken me a little while to share my experience, but getting ready for holidays and my daughter won't let me have 5 mins..

Anyway, we started ringing LAs in DSec 07, having finally decided that adoption was right for us,I emailed or/and called around 15-20 LAs in a 30 mile radius !!! not one of them would take us on weither due to "not out of treatment 6 months", "just getting married (Aug08), wrong ethinicity, only older children available.... once I had recieved back the answers and a fair few didnt even have the courtesy to respond, we decided to go with a VA in London... AMAZING... just a totally different experience.

We went on the prep courses in May 08, got married in August 08,they had no worries about that, had 3 months break in homestudy then got approved Feb09, our little girl age (5) has been home with us for just over a year and is the most amazing and beautiful little girl we could ever had had.

We are a fair bit older than yourself I am now 46 and DH is 44, we wanted to be considered for up to 2 children and age range 2-5, we did know and was told that VA do place harder to place children , however sometimes it can be to the security of the child as Whelshbird or calypso did mention that VAs looked nationally, our daughter is from many many miles away. You will need to be patient and I know from my own experience sometimes I have cried, laughed a lot, got angry as the whole process is unravelling your past present and future... in a good way and delving into your own life and DHs.... in the long run , they need to 100% the match is right and ours certainly was ...

Wishing you all the luck in the world and please PM me if I can help out..

Love Marlene .... xx

Beautiful Daughter and gorgeous Son through adoption, my family now complete , 2009 started our journey and complete Oct 2012 ....

I keep popping in on this thread - I am so upset that you had such a negative experience
Its shameful.

You should be treated with the utmost respect for what you are considering doing. You are lucky in that you are surrounded by positive adoption stories, focus on them. And personally, I firmly believe that the harder you have to work to create a family, the more you will love, and be loved by, your family.

I wonder if much depends on the individual SW - it’s possible that you’ll feel much more comfortable with the SW who comes to do your home study?

We are in the very early stages, we have had our first home visit with the SW and he couldn’t have been nicer. Having read lots about the process we were fully prepared for a barrage of negativity but it wasn’t like that at all. He didn’t give the impression that it was an easy process, but neither did he make us feel uncomfortable. He talked very informally to us at first - asked about family, work, how long we’d lived in our house, been married etc. He then moved onto the tougher questions, and said we weren’t being morally judged so to be completely honest (for example that we aren’t in a position to adopt a child with disabilities).
This chap (the SW) is in his mid 60’s, he’s been a SW for over 30 years and he also counsels people who (like us) have been through fertility treatment. In addition, he acts as an intermediate for adults who were adopted and have searched and are due to meet their birth family.
We felt so comfortable with him that we asked would he do his best to carry out our home study – hopefully he will.

Hi guys thanks for continuing to post on this thread!! I've taken the sw advice and I've started ready all about the adoption process even have dinner date tommorrow with a couple who have two boys adopted both under 1 . I did tell the sw that i thought she was putting a negative spin on something that should be more positive. I probably annoyed her!! I'm really keen to continue this route I have my forms and will complete over the weekend. Exciting stuff!! Xxx

Hi Joeys
Im going through the adoption process right now and have to say stay with it ! the SW seem to be negative at the start but i think this is to try and let you know its going to be tough.the preparation days give you much more information,but then its the waiting and that can drive you mad !!Please dont forget you have a gift to give and there are children who need us ,so just stay strong xxx